L’ORÉAL COMMITS TO EMPOWER WOMEN IN FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE

L'Oréal will mentor young women who develop solutions to limit the impacts of climate change, in each city of C40 that participates in the program. The Group will mobilize leading women from its own teams to support future leaders and to strengthen their leadership capabilities. L'Oréal will support research on gender-specific consequences of climate change, by funding university chairs around the world. Alongside the C40 Cities, L’Oréal will also contribute to select and finance projects that respond to gender-specific challenges in fighting climate change.

“At L’Oréal we consider it strategic to engage with C40 women mayors to empower the next generation of women leaders in fighting climate change. This commitment reflects two of L’Oréal’s major orientations: gender equality and climate protection”, said Alexandra Palt, L’Oréal’s Chief Sustainability Officer. “Women will play a critical role in tackling climate change. It is our responsibility to empower and support them.”

“The private sector is a key partner in the effort to empower women and fight climate change. L’Oréal is the first corporate partner to support the Women4Climate initiative and I am delighted by this cooperation”, declared Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris and Chair of C40.

C40 Cities connects 90 of the world’s biggest cities, representing more than 650 million citizens and one quarter of the global economy. Created and led by cities, C40 aims to tackle climate change and drive action that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks, while increasing the health, wellbeing and economic opportunities of urban people. The current chair of the C40 is Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo; and three-term Mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg serves as President of the Board.

L’Oréal’s sustainability commitments
As the world’s leading beauty company, L'Oréal is committed to gender equality. Women account for 46% of the Board and 58% of L’Oréal’s brands are headed by women. Women have also an important role in the supply chain of L’Oréal at the heart of communities that produce the raw materials of plant origin used by L’Oréal.

This is the case of the sustainable sourcing of shea butter from Burkina Faso that benefits to 35,000 women, or argan oil which comes from a network of cooperatives established in Morocco with 600 members. These programs already include adaptation strategies in order to help these women to limit the consequences of climate change on their livelihoods and revenue.

L'Oréal is also committed to a systematic effort to drastically reduce its CO2 emissions. L’Oréal reduced its CO2 emissions in 2016 by 67% in absolute terms from a 2005 baseline while the Group's production volume rose by 29%. L’Oréal has thus confirmed its ability, for over a dozen years, to combine economic growth with a firm commitment to climate protection.

This performance has been acknowledged by CDP, an independent organisation that measures and evaluates companies' sustainable development strategies and achievements.

About L'Oréal
L’Oréal has devoted itself to beauty for over 100 years. With its unique international portfolio of 34 diverse and complementary brands, the Group generated sales amounting to 25.8 billion euros in 2016 and employs 89,300 people worldwide. As the world’s leading beauty company, L’Oréal is present across all distribution networks: mass market, department stores, pharmacies and drugstores, hair salons, travel retail, branded retail and e-commerce.
Research and innovation, and a dedicated research team of 3,870 people, are at the core of L’Oréal’s strategy, working to meet beauty aspirations all over the world. L’Oréal’s sustainability commitment for 2020 “Sharing Beauty With All” sets out ambitious sustainable development objectives across the Group’s value chain. www.loreal.com